In addition to Unitarian Universalism, Paganism is the other main thread of religion I practice. I have been a teacher of Pagan spirituality and religion for over 20 years now. This means that over the course of my career, I’ve had a lot of time to observe larger patterns and currents in the adherents and explorers of Pagan belief. Devotional polytheists – people who believe in, worship and serve various different gods, are part of our diaspora. And, the overwhelming majority of Pagans convert to Paganism from something else. In most cases, that something else is a form of Christianity. In addition to that common form of conversion, Paganism here in the United States is influenced by the Christian supremacist culture we are a part of. A supremacist system is one where the norms of a particular culture are held up and enforced as universal. Living in Christian supremacy means that even if a Pagan was relatively unchurched, they often have deeply embedded ideas based on the definitions that come to us from Christianity.
For example: what is a god?
The Christian answer is an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present being whose wisdom and knowledge supersedes all human understanding.
What you might not know is that this conception of deity is largely limited to Christianity. In most polytheistic religions, the gods are limited. They do not know everything. They are powerful, but not without limits on power. They are not able to be everywhere all the time. They are different than humans, wiser in some ways, more capable in some ways, but not without their own challenges. In most polytheistic religions, the gods can become ill, make mistakes, and even die. They have their own interpersonal issues, their own work they are trying to do in the world, and their own burdens to carry.
The deeply embedded Christian supremacist thinking about what gods are takes root in Pagan belief with all the problematic baggage that accompanies the idea of an all-powerful all-knowing deity. Adherents assume that because their lives are challenging, the gods they serve are somehow displeased with them. The guilt, shame, and victim-blaming that comes along with Christian baggage simply takes on a new form and continues in Pagans. This extends to a certain kind of helplessness: the idea that prayer and offerings are the only way to solve a problem. People sometimes stay stuck when they could move, relying on an internalized misconception of the gods rather than taking responsibility for and action to support their own lives.
It’s difficult to step outside the culture in which we are raised. Dismantling internalized norms takes work and time. But for those of us for whom the gods are all too obviously real, this dismantling is vital work if we’re going to develop a form of religion that’s healthy.
So we come back to the question: what is a god?
The band Florence and the Machine has a new album out that I’m high-key obsessed with. In the song Sympathy Magic, there’s a section of lyrics I love: “And a light coming in the window just so/And the wind through my fingers/The only god that I know/And it does not want me on my knees to believe.”
Interestingly, I think Florence Welch is tapping into a Pagan conception of deity in those words. You see, in many if not most non-Christian religions, the gods are associated with the currents of nature. They embody things like the cold winter wind, the spring thunderstorms that bring life-giving rains, the first warm sunlight in spring, the work and joy of a good harvest, and the dark earth of the burial grounds. Pagan gods are not separate from the world – they are part of it just as we are. They are born of the earth, just as we are.
One answer to the question “what is a god” that I find resonant is the idea that a deity is the combination of natural forces in the landscape and the relationship those forces have with the humans who live there. In regions with extreme weather – the very far north as well as the deserts – the gods can be fierce. The human relationship with the land in those places is fierce. In regions that are more hospitable to human life, the gods are gentler, particularly those associated with currents that are part of the agricultural cycle. So the Norse god Thor is the force of the spring thunderstorms and vitality of the livestock as they begin the work of spring. The Greek goddess Demeter is both the abundance of the harvest and the labor that brings it forth. The Mayan god Kisin is the earthquake that destroys and reshapes the land.
The light, the wind, the rain, the darkness: these strong forces still hold sway in our lives no matter how many space heaters we run in an attempt to ignore the winter. We are still in relationship with the land where we live whether we consciously acknowledge it or not.
Another conception that comes to us from several different Pagan religions involves scale. Some deities are “big” – the sun, the moon, the rising green of the growing season. But non-Christian conceptions of deity also include “smaller” gods: the mountain range nearby, the river you live near, and the forest at the edge of the settlement.
Smaller doesn’t mean less impactful on human lives. Those of us who live in or near flood plains are all too aware of how much a flood can change the course of a life. Those of us who live close to the mountains understand what an earthquake or landslide could do. Those of us who live by the ocean know its changing moods can transform the shoreline and anything built there.
If I could telepathically give everyone one concept from Paganism, a more expansive and nuanced definition of deity is up high on my list. If we let the gods be more complicated, more interesting, more varied, and more limited, what would religion look like? How much more healthy would it be if we all co-created religion with the mysteries of this world rather than bound ourselves to a rigid, punitive, merciless understanding of the numinous?
So. What are the forces you interact with regularly? What are the natural currents that govern the land where you live? What does that mean for the way you interact with the land you belong to?
And, can you create space for a wider understanding of the forces we call gods?
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